Musical fusion takes many forms. But have you ever heard punk rock blended with bhangra and klezmer? Probably not—unless you’re a fan of Firewater, a punk band out of Brooklyn whose musical reach extends across the Middle East and Asia. Its founder and lead singer/songwriter, Tod Ashley, better known as Tod A, set out in 2005 and traveled overland from India through Pakistan, and into Istanbul and Israel. Along the way, he met lots of local musicians who were happy to share their songs.

The resulting album is Firewater’s The Golden Hour— a zingy distillation of worldwide influences, anchored by the band’s essential punk roots and disaffected lyrics. Tod edited it in cheap hotel rooms at night after the sessions, and mixed and produced it in Tel Aviv with drummer Tamir Muskat from Balkan Beat Box. What makes the CD really shine is the mixture of flashes and bursts from Tod’s impromptu recording sessions with a bunch of unknown musicians, and the way he's managed to break down borders in countries where few musicians could ever imagine having the chance to perform with foreign counterparts. (As Tod notes in a publicity video, “Even though Israelis can’t go to Pakistan and Pakistanis can’t go to Israel… somehow a bunch of Pakistanis and a bunch of Israelis wound up playing on the same record.” Surely a first.)

Firewater performed earlier this month in Washington, D.C. Before they went onstage, I sat down with Tod  in Firewater’s big white van, parked outside the Black Cat club, while he smoked cigarettes and answered a few questions.

Your music is variously described as punk klezmer, world punk, and probably a few other things I can’t even imagine. How do you define it?

World punk is probably not a bad label to have stamped on it. To me, punk rock is not about piercings or tattoos. It’s about honesty of delivery and stripping off all the b.s. and trappings and frosting, and delivering something really from the heart that’s direct. Some of most amazing punk rock bands are the Mexican banda or the Indian wedding bands. They’ve got that energy where you feel a person’s soul is being laid on the line. That’s punk rock for me and that’s where I take my inspiration from, no matter from what country.

Qawwali, the Indian subcontinent’s ecstatic, devotional Sufi music, has a searing emotional quality, too. People around the world used to flock to performances by the late, great Pakistani qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, even though they couldn't understand the lyrics. Were you already a fan of that music?

Yeah. But you know, I’m not a musicologist. I came into it a bit like a tourist. It’s a part of the world I didn’t know about but my government has been interacting with in a big way. I went there because I was curious, more than anything. I was going in as a blank slate, with no preconceptions—just a musician, hopefully with an open mind. The main impetus for the trip was not to make a record but to take a trip. As it happened, I got really lucky and got some great stuff.

How did you meet the musicians you ended up recording?

A lot of it was chance and luck. I would just go into a town and start asking around at my hotel or sometimes at shops. I met a guy on the street in Lahore. It was the first day of the monsoon and the skies opened up. So me and this guy took shelter under a roof and he pulled out a cigarette and I asked him for a light. It turned out he was a tabla and harmonium teacher. I recorded at his house and in his courtyard, with chickens running through, and goats.

One night that was kind of amazing was a Sufi night in a village outside Lahore. It was kind of a battle of the bands, different groups would come in and start playing, and they’d really get smoking and people would gather around. Then someone else would start. I was surreptitiously recording and there’s a little snatch of that at end of "This Is My Life."

Few of these musicians spoke English. How did you communicate with them?

The translations were a bit like playing telephone. Sometimes I’d just make noises with my mouth and whip out my acoustic guitar and give them an idea of what I was after. Most of these guys had never been recorded. They play at weddings, nautch [dance] parties, whatever gigs they could get to get some extra money. They’re from little villages. I couldn’t afford famous studio musicians so I was just looking for real down-home folks.

With the lack of language, a lot of times it’s just communication between musicians with the eyes—a lot of smiling. I felt somehow it rose above politics and borders in some small way.

Pakistan and Israel were both founded around the same time, both as religious homelands. Did you find musical similarities between the two countries?

I’m an atheist but I love a lot of religious music. For me it was almost a similar learning experience to understand a country like Israel and a country like Pakistan. There’s a soul that comes from religiously inspired music that I really get off on. It’s the honesty and letting it out in a very unpretentious way that both countries share.

What were the main things you learned from the musicians you met?

To listen a bit more. My schooling in traditional music comes from records and radio and things I dug up and found myself. These guys have an apprentice system. Every band I worked with had old guys in their 70s, and guys maybe 14 or 15 years old, and every age in between. Gypsy bands work the same way. They watch and listen and absorb it, till the young guys become the 70-year-olds. That was cool to watch. We don’t do it that way in this country.

Pakistan’s technically a dry country. Were you able to find firewater?

I went to buy a six-pack and was offered a rocket launcher. I said, “No. I’m here to buy a six-pack.”

Did you travel much growing up?

I was raised all over. I was born in South Carolina and grew up in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vancouver, Wales. My mother’s a geologist. She travels a lot now, more than I do. She’s worked in Antarctica and right now she’s in Kenya, in the Rift Valley.

You didn’t want to follow in her professional footsteps?

Well, you know, I went into rock.

-by Hannah Bloch

Silverdocs is an annual festival of documentaries from around the world, screened at the American Film Institute’s Silver Theatre. This year's dates: June 16-23. For those who live far away from the Maryland movie palace, or couldn’t score tickets, here’s a sample of what you’re missing.

Mechanical Love

Subject: Efforts to create robots that give comfort to old people, or that look and act just like real people.

Style: With strumming harps and eerie choruses, the film looks at how German nursing home patients are comforted by an interactive robotic seal named Paro and how a child is rather repulsed by her dad's "geminoid" -- a strangely lifelike robotic twin.

Factoid: A robotic cat tested poorly, since people compared it to real cats. The robotic seal was an easier sell.

Something to Think About: When you're 90 years old, do you really want to be playing with a souped-up Tickle Me Elmo? –Marc Silver

Dust

Subject: Dust comes from mining, manufacturing, dry land, falling buildings, outer space, and your own body. Some of it will kill you, and you will never keep your house clean.

Style: Dry descriptions of dust and the many machines that people use to study it pile on top of each other, much like the little flecks that are the film’s protagonists. By the end, you’ll want to buy a Dyson supervacuum or two.

Factoid: Without dust, there would be no clouds.

Something to Think About: You thought Martha Stewart put your house to shame? Some people dust inside their TVs.  –Brad Scriber

 
Journey of a Red Fridge

Subject: To pay for schooling, a porter boy carries a red refrigerator on his back down the mountains of Nepal—stabilized by a band around his forehead and the hefty appliance!

Style: The camera closely follows 17-year-old Hari as he drags the fridge to town, taking occasional breaks for odd porter jobs that provide him food and bed. Along the way, he chats with locals about harvests and weddings and reveals his own thoughts.

Factoid: There are as many as 60,000 child porters in Nepal who carry loads from town to town that average 101 pounds.

Something to Think About: In the poor villages of Nepal, boys like Hari do not fantasize about girls or cars; instead, they dream of building hospitals, improving schools, and finding jobs that will pay enough so they can help their families. –Tammie Smith

Pindorama: The True Story of the Seven Dwarves

Subject: Seven Brazilian brothers and sisters who suffer from dwarfism run the traveling Pindorama circus, named after their late father, Pindoba, a famous clown.

Style: Intimate scenes of the family members at work (performing, rehearsing, setting up/breaking down the big top) and play (drinking, shopping, driving, giving each other good-natured grief) are interspersed with pastoral shots of rural and coastal Brazil. A steady hum of bossa nova and tropicália, plus traditional circus fare, underscores the relaxed, genial mood.

Factoid: The family (nearly) illustrates the 50 percent odds of passed-on dwarfism: A dwarf parent and a regular-sized one had 12 children—seven "little people," five "big."

Something to Think About: According to one Pindoroma principal, “If you aren’t a clown, you’re a knife-thrower.” Words to live by? –Jeremy Berlin

Man on Wire

Subject: In 1974, French tightrope walker Philippe Petit did a 45-minute high-wire dance between the towers of the not-quite-finished World Trade Centers. This was, of course, totally illegal.

Style: In recent interviews with Petit and his conspirators, they still seem shocked that they it pulled off. They filmed some of their preparations at the time—young people frolicking in a meadow and holding logistics meetings, with 23-year-old Petit a wiry ball of concentration and obsession. The filmmakers also used reenactments of the secret operation, when the kids sneaked into the World Trade Center and worked all night to bring joy to the people of New York. (In news footage of the event, even the cops who arrested Petit seem impressed.)

Factoid: Petit's dream began when he was sitting in a dentist's waiting room at age 17 and saw a newspaper article about the plan to build the twin towers.

Something to Think About: It's never once mentioned, but the end of the towers hovers over the film.

-Helen Fields

Kicking It

Subject: Soccer teams from 48 countries compete for the fourth annual Homeless World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa, with reels of highlights and pre- and post-game interviews.

Style: Characters of six different ages from six different countries build a storyline, from 23-year-old Najib, an Afghani whose first kiss comes from the lips of a Team Paraguay supporter, to 62-year-old alcoholic Jesus of Spain, who revisits youthful soccer glory when he laces up for the Homeless Cup.

Factoid: Because of their tremendous run in the 2006 HWC, Russia created a homeless street soccer league—eight teams at film’s end and expanding. (Thanks for the update, narrator Colin Farrell!)

Something to Think About: Troubled Irish goalkeeper Damien returned to Dublin to kick his methadone addiction; his mom let him move back home. Simon, his vivacious teammate, died of an overdose four months after the contest. He had been clean for eighteen months before his relapse.

-Jeff DiNunzio

America’s number one movie is spreading lies about pandas! Kung Fu Panda earns an A for laughs but doesn't always get its facts straight. We asked our staff expert, Lynne Warren, author of the 2006 article "Panda, Inc.," to discuss how real pandas differ from (and resemble) the movie version.

They are lazy.
In the film, the promise of noodles motivates Po the panda to learn the splits and high kicks of the martial arts. In reality, nothing really motivates pandas to be active. When eating bamboo, they prefer to sit and lean back against a tree or rock or some other backdrop. Scientists have seen pandas pass by areas full of bamboo because there’s simply no place to sit and chomp. In conclusion: “Pandas may be the laziest creatures in the universe," says Warren. Warning: The next sentence is rated R: Male pandas have been known to interrupt their coupling because they are just too … yawn … tired.

They are bamboo-a-vores.
So, no noodles! Pandas in the wild eat pretty much bamboo, bamboo, and bamboo, with the occasional insect or rodent ingested along with the stalks. In zoos, fruits and vegetables like sweet potatoes are added to the menu for nutritional reasons.

They smell great and so does their poop!
Shifu, the red panda who trains movie panda Po in the martial arts, repeatedly tells the bear that he stinks. Pandas are not particularly smelly. Nor is their feces: It’s basically bamboo bound up with mucus-like substances.

Black and white helps keep them hidden.
The panda color scheme seems cartoonish. In fact, in the shadows of a forest, the coloring offers great camouflage.

Pandas are agile.
They may not be able to use chopsticks, as Po does in the film, but their paws are nimble, used to strip leaves from bamboo and roll them into small bundles for a snack. And while they don’t do kung fu, they can move with speed and grace. One scientist caught a glimpse of a panda in the wild, slipping into the forest, and decided to follow. Within minutes, the scientist was unable to move in the dense undergrowth. But the panda was out of sight.

-Tammie R. Smith

For the latest word on the secrets of Stonehenge, you can read National Geographic Magazine's cover story. You can watch Stonehenge Decoded, the new National Geographic Channel documentary film. Or you can glean insights from the interview with Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap, who puts forth his own personal theory: One man built it. Duncan was his name. "Didn't have last names then," Tufnel explains. And how did Duncan do it? Tufnel believes "Dunca" would say: "Well I got myself a drill and I built it, you know."

In a series of videos, Tufnel expounds on Stonehenge, the language of potatoes, and the National Geographic Channel:

Interviewer: "Do you ever watch the National Geographic Channel?"
Nigel Tufnel: "Yes and no."
Interviewer: "Is that a no?
Nigel Tufnel: "It's a no. It's that it's not good. It's hard to follow. They should do puppet shows. It explains it better."

We are thankful he was not asked to comment on the magazine.

-Marc Silver

If you caught some of Hillary Clinton’s speech to her supporters in New York this week, you may have paid as much attention to the way she spoke as you did to her actual words. During the endless primary season, Clinton was repeatedly bashed for allegedly using different accents, depending on where she spoke and to whom. Author and social critic Camille Paglia wrote: “For every new state or region, [Clinton] trots out a new tone or accent, from the crisp to the cornpone.”

But was Hillary purposely pandering? Or just engaging in normal human behavior? “We modify our speech all the time,” says Steven Weinberger, director of linguistics at George Mason University, home of a speech accent archive. “We do it unconsciously, every day. It’s very, very normal.”

The University of Pennsylvania’s William Labov, one of this country’s most distinguished linguists and co-author of the Atlas of North American English, agrees. I asked Labov to listen to a couple of excerpts of Hillary's supposed southern accent. He shared his thoughts via e-mail: “I hear her doing just what many effective political speakers do: making slight adjustments without changing her basic Chicago speech pattern, as a way of making contact with the audience.”

Labov also analyzed video clips of Clinton’s South Carolina debate and found “she is consistent in her use of her native Chicago dialect.” During her 2000 New York Senate campaign, people “wrongly thought she had adopted a NYC pattern. In fact, I found she had returned to her native Chicago pattern, abandoning some of the Southern features she had picked up in Little Rock.”

And it’s not surprising she would have picked up some Southern speech habits. She did, after all, spend nearly two decades of her adult life in Arkansas. Linguists say that’s long enough to adopt a way of speaking different than the one we grew up with (though not enough to sound like a native).

“People who have lived in two or more places for long periods may have two near-native accents and may be able to shift (consciously or not) between them,” David Harrison e-mailed me. He’s a linguist at Swarthmore College and co-director of National Geographic’s Enduring Voices project to preserve endangered languages around the world. “Lots of people shift their accent to some degree when they are in the environment of another accent,” Harrison says.

Robin Dodsworth, a linguist at North Carolina State University, points out that women tend to be more “stylistically flexible than men in language use. Men don’t style-shift as much.” (“Style-shifting” is linguist-speak for making adjustments, often unconsciously, for different audiences). Explanations for this behavior vary, but perhaps women use language more flexibly to get their point across because historically they’ve had less power.

So maybe style-shifting is just part of what it takes to make a historic run for the presidency. It's certainly part of being a royal. Linguists in the U.K. analyzed Queen Elizabeth II’s annual Christmas messages over 30 years and found “the Queen no longer speaks the Queen’s English of the 1950s.” In that decade, she pronounced the word “had” as if it were “hed.” By the ‘80s, it rhymed with “bad.” The linguists concluded that “there has been a drift in the Queen’s accent towards one that is characteristic of speakers who are younger and/or lower in the social hierarchy.” But when it comes to style-shifting, neither Hillary nor Elizabeth II can match the biggest style-shifting queen of all: Madonna.

-Hannah Bloch